[Bilimsel Haber] CFP: Sacred, Liminal and Secular Space(s) (UK) (2/2/07; 4/21/07)

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

CALL FOR PAPERS (Including performances, designs, exhibitions,
installations)

Sacred, Liminal and Secular Space(s).
Faculty of Creativity and Culture
School of Arts and Media
Annual One-Day Interdisciplinary Conference.
Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College
April 21st 2007.


How have scholars and practitioners interpreted and appropriated space
within their work and research?

This conference aims to explore how meanings have proliferated in the
experience and in the production of space, and invites contributions
from scholars and practitioners of literature, culture, media and film,
performing arts, fine arts and design, as well as history and criticism,
and digital technologies.


Sacred Space(s)

Space has traditionally been the focal point for the fiercely contested
category of the sacred. The sacred itself however is, as Levi-Strauss
pointed out, "a value of indeterminate signification, in itself empty of
meaning and therefore susceptible to the reception of any meaning
whatsoever."

How are we to interpret the traditional notion of sacred (and by
implication profane) space in the context of a predominantly secular
culture? What is significant about contemporary claims for space as sacred?


Secular Space

Unlike the profane, which may be regarded as anti-sacred, the secular
can be aligned with the notion of non-sacredness. Rather than being
incorporated in a binary relation to the sacred, how do notions of the
secular exist in their own right and how have these been explored by
academics and practitioners? How have secular spaces been produced?

How might designers, practitioners and academics use, represent and
interpret areas which may be classified as secular spaces such as empty
and full space(s), open and closed, public and private, intimate and
expansive, negative and positive, narrative space and production space?


Liminal Space(s)

Victor Turner notes: "Prophets and artists tend to be liminal and
marginal people, 'edgemen,' who strive with a passionate sincerity to
rid themselves of the cliches associated with status incumbency and
role-playing and to enter into vital relations with other[s] in fact or
imagination."

How can this notion be applied to liminal spaces as "potentially
[places] of scrutinization of the central values or axioms of the
culture in which [they] occur, and unused evolutionary potential in
mankind which has not yet been externalized or fixed in structure?"
(Turner) What are the processes of identification, transformation and
re-appropriation which take place or exist in liminal spaces?


We invite contributions which address questions such as (but not
exclusively) the following:

* Sacred Space and the relationship between the sacred and the profane
* Secular Spaces
* Liminality
* Designing the sacred
* Objects in space
* Literary, Cinematic, Photographic and Performative imaginings and
interpretations of sacred spaces
* Media technologies and the reinterpretation of space
* Space and identity
* Space in relation to ritual
* The reinterpretation and re-establishment of sacred spaces in
contemporary environmentalism


Contributions may take the form of academic papers, performances,
exhibitions, installations etc.

Proposals and abstracts of approx. 250 words should be sent to Lorna
Ashton-Scott (conference manager) on <mailto:lorna.ashtonscott at bcuc.ac.uk>
lorna.ashtonscott at bcuc.ac.uk by Friday 2nd February 2007.

Other enquiries to academic staff / conference organisers:
Donna Savery donna.savary at bcuc.ac.uk and Pedro DeSenna
pedro.desenna at bcuc.ac.uk on 01494 522141 ext 3261
Nicholas Foxton nick.foxton at bcuc.ac.uk 01494 605079
Greer Crawley greer.crawley at bcuc.ac.uk  01494 522141 ext 5088



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